Sherman Alexie - Flight

I remember my first day of school. Kindergarten. My mother walked me there. It was only six blocks away from our apartment, but six blocks is forever to a child.

As we walked, my mother talked to me.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “School is a good thing. You’re going to have lots of friends. And you’ll learn so much. And the teachers will take care of you, okay? I love you, okay? You’ll be okay. I’m going to wait right here for you. All day, I’ll wait right here.”

She was wrong, of course. School was not good for me.

I never made friends.

I didn’t learn much.

I was not okay.

And my mother didn’t wait for me. She died.

After she died, I went to live with her sister, my aunt.

Yes, that’s the dirtiest secret I own.

This is what I don’t tell anybody. I don’t talk about it. I don’t dream about it. I don’t want anybody to know.

My aunt was supposed to take care of me. She had promised her sister she would take care of me. She was the only family I had.

My father was gone. My mother was gone. My grandparents were gone. Everybody was gone.

My aunt was all I had.

Aunt Zooey. Auntie Z.

She lived in an apartment with her boyfriend. A man who smelled of onions and beer. A man who leaned over my bed in the middle of the night. A man who hurt me.

I told Auntie Z.

She slapped me.

I told Auntie Z again.

She slapped me again.

I was six years old. I cried for my mother. Like a lost dog, I howled all night. I could not stop crying. I missed my mother.

My mommy. My mommy. My mommy.

I cried for one week. Then two weeks. Then three weeks.

Every night, Auntie Z rushed into my room, shook me, slapped me, and screamed at me.

Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying.

I miss her, too. I miss her, too. I miss her, too.

She’s not coming back. She’s not coming back. She’s not coming back.

Some nights, her boyfriend came to see me. He hurt me and whispered to me in the dark.

Don’t tell anybody, don’t tell anybody, don’t tell anybody.

Everybody knows you’re a liar. Everybody knows you’re a liar. Everybody knows you’re a liar.

Nobody loves you anymore. Nobody loves you anymore. Nobody loves you anymore.

I learned how to stop crying.

I learned how to hide inside of myself.

I learned how to be somebody else.

I learned how to be cold and numb.

When I was eight years old, I ran away for the first time.

When I was nine, I poured lighter fluid on my aunt’s boyfriend and tried to set him on fire. He woke up and punched me into the hospital. They sent him to jail.

After he got out of jail, he left my aunt. She blamed me.

When I was ten, Auntie Z gave me twenty dollars and sent me to buy some hamburgers and fries. When I got back to the apartment, she was gone. She never came back.

When I was eleven, I ran away from my first foster home and got drunk in the street with three homeless Indians from Alaska.

When I was twelve, I ran away from my seventh foster home.

When I was thirteen, I smoked crack for the first time.

When I was fourteen, I stole a car and wrecked it into a building beneath the Alaska Way Viaduct.

When I was fifteen, I met a kid named Justice who taught me how to shoot guns.

But I am tired of hurting people. I am tired of being hurt.

I need help.

I walk from street to street, looking for help. I walk past Pike Place Market and Nordstrom’s. I walk past Gameworks and the Space Needle. I walk past Lake Washington and Lake Union. I walk for miles. I walk for days. I walk for years.

I don’t understand how time works anymore.

I walk until I see a police car parked in front of a restaurant.

I walk inside.

It’s a cheap diner. Eight tables. Two waitresses. A cook in the back.

At one of the tables sit two cops, Officer Dave and his partner. They’ve arrested me more often than any other duo.

I walk up to them.

“Officer Dave,” I say.

“Hey, Zits,” he says. “What’s going on?”

I want to tell him the entire story. I want to tell him that I fell through time and have only now returned. I want to tell him I learned a valuable lesson. But I don’t know what that lesson is. It’s too complicated, too strange. Or maybe it really is simple. Maybe it’s so simple it makes me feel stupid to say it.

Maybe you’re not supposed to kill. No matter who tells you to do it. No matter how good or bad the reason. Maybe you’re supposed to believe that all life is sacred.

“Officer Dave,” I say, and raise my hands high in the air, “I want you to know that I respect you. And I’m here for a good reason. I’m raising my hands up because I have two guns inside my coat. One of them is just a paint gun, but the other one is real.”

Officer Dave and his partner quickly get to their feet. Their hands touch their guns, ready to pull them out of their holsters.

“This isn’t funny, Zits,” Officer Dave says. “You say stuff like that, you’re going to get shot.”

I start laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Officer Dave asks.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” I say. “And I don’t want to get shot. I really do have two guns. I want you to take them from me. Please, take them away.”

OFFICER DAVE TAKES MY guns.

And then he takes me to the police station. He stands nearby as a detective interviews me. He’s a big black man with big eyeglasses. He calls it an interview. It’s really an interrogation. I don’t mind. I guess I deserve to be interrogated.

“Where did you get the guns?” Detective Eyeglasses asks.

“I got them from a kid named Justice,” I say.

“Was Justice his first or last name?”

“He just called himself Justice. That’s all. He said he gave himself the name.”

“You don’t know his real name?”

“No.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“In jail.”

“When was this?”

“A few months ago, I guess. Don’t really remember. I’ve been in jail a lot.”

“Okay, so you met him in jail. But you don’t remember exactly when. And you say his name is Justice. But that’s not his real name.”

“Yeah.”

“None of that information helps us much, does it? It’s not very specific, is it?”

“No, I guess not.”

I can tell that Detective Eyeglasses doesn’t believe me. He thinks I invented Justice.

“You say this guy named Justice is the one who told you to go to the bank and kill people?” Eyeglasses asks me.

“Yeah,” I say.

The detective stares at me hard, like his eyes were twin suns. I feel burned.

He pulls a TV cart into the room and plays a video for me. It’s a copy of the bank security tape.

Eyeglasses, Officer Dave, and I watch a kid named Zits walk into the bank and stand near a huge potted plant.

I laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Eyeglasses asks.

“I just look stupid next to that big plant. Look at me, I’m trying to hide behind it.”

It’s true. I’m using it for cover. Eyeglasses and Officer Dave have to laugh, too. It is funny. But it’s only funny because I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. It’s only funny because I’m alive to watch it. It’s only funny because everybody in that bank is still alive.

So maybe it’s not really funny at all.

Maybe we’re all laughing because it’s so fucking unfunny.

In the video, I pat my coat once, twice, three times.

“What are you doing?” Eyeglasses asks.

“I’m checking to see if my guns are still there,” I say.

“Are you thinking about using them?”